Only 1 Arsenal player considered anywhere near good enough for the England squad from a huge squad of 30. There was a time when we had about 7 in one squad once

Everton and Villa have more than us.

Even Dortmund and they aren’t even an English club.

People saying we don’t have a gap in quality are bonkers.

Tottenham have one player. Liverpool have two. Would you swap Ramsdale for Leno?

Not necessarily but united have 6 in the squad and this season we have given a lot of minutes to young English players. It’s hardly a good indicator of strength right ?

Not necessarily but united have 6 in the squad and this season we have given a lot of minutes to young English players. It’s hardly a good indicator of strength right ?

It's not an indicator at all. Our Invincibles had two England internationals.

It is also subject to the vagaries of whoever is in charge and you also have the imbalance of strength in depth in certain positions and weaknesses in others. Southgate doesn't like Trent. It's madness but there you go. Holding is a better defender than Mings.

England have a phenomenal group of wide forwards but only one top quality centre forward, quite weak midfielders and a modest set of keepers.

A factor particular to Arsenal is that we sign so few English players. Is it just Chambers and Holding in the last decade?

His versatility should keep him there for the 26. There's some obvious ones who will get cut. Probably Ramsdale, at least 1 of the right-backs (he's picked 4), Ben White and maybe Ben Godfrey, War-Prowse and maybe Watkins.

Actually if you think about it then it’s not just England either. How many of our players generally are nailed on starters for their respective national sides ?

Pépé, Aubameyang, Tierney and Xhaka ?

Doesn’t seem many

There’s a few like Saka and Bellerin who may pick up occasional caps. A lot of our foreign players don’t seem rated by their national coaches either

Buendia looks awesome in his you tube video. And I know that means little but take a look.

Isn’t Partey a regular starter for Ghana, and at the age of 28 Elneny has 79 caps so I assume he must be for Egypt. I’m not certain being a regular international is a reliable guide to a player’s quality. I know you don’t rate Xhaka but he’s Switzerland’s captain and I doubt many of us see Elneny as a must keep player.

Furthermore, Arsenal have a decent number of promising youngsters who will hopefully have significant and successful careers with the club. But none are regular starters for their national teams yet. I wouldn’t expect Saka and Smith Rowe to yet be with England, nor Martinelli for Brazil. Leno can’t be expected to have that many German caps yet (he has 8) as he has had Neuer (98 caps), in my view the greatest keeper I’ve ever seen, and ter Stegen (25 caps) keeping him out the team.

Buendia looks awesome in his you tube video. And I know that means little but take a look.

Xhaka gets into the CIES Football Observatory’s Premier League team of the season. To be honest I can understand why. Despite a few errors like most obviously the Burnley game, as a general rule I always think we look worse in the games he misses. Or to put it another way, better in the ones he does play.

When he eventually leaves the club, whether that’s this summer or not, I think overall he deserves to be considered a good signing. Or even ‘has to be’ instead of ‘deserves’.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/paininthea ... eason/amp/

Granit Xhakas best ever season.

Only one goal all season and single handedly cost us the home and away fixture v Burnley.

Arsenal fans willingness to embrace very average players with zero personality continues

Xhaka gets into the CIES Football Observatory’s Premier League team of the season. To be honest I can understand why. Despite a few errors like most obviously the Burnley game, as a general rule I always think we look worse in the games he misses. Or to put it another way, better in the ones he does play.

When he eventually leaves the club, whether that’s this summer or not, I think overall he deserves to be considered a good signing. Or even ‘has to be’ instead of ‘deserves’.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/paininthea ... eason/amp/

These CIES Football Observatory lads are either on a wind-up or on drugs.

This does somewhat prove my point above.
I don't think any Arsenal fan thinks Xhaka is the answer to getting us back to challenging for the biggest prizes and I think we all agree that central midfield is the key area we need to strengthen but at the same time we can still acknowledge that he's had a decent season in the context of the entire squad and club.

These CIES Football Observatory lads are either on a wind-up or on drugs.

Even Xhakas mum is picking Fernandinho

The context is that he was rubbish for the first half of the season then after a series of humiliating performances picked up his game, stopped making mistakes and achieved the bare minimum of someone expected in his position and seniority

It's based on a performance index using a complation of different stats, not selected by a jury. I think it's an interesting approach as opposed to the selected best elevens we see that are largely based on reputation anyway.

In which case the stats chosen must be a bit odd. How does Salah not make the team with his 22 goals?

Gundogan was excellent this season. No sign of him either. Robertson at left back, given the season Shaw had.

And Lindelof?

I agree that many of these teams of the year are based on past achievements, DeBruyne being a typical example for this season, but that team is bonkers. Looks like click-bait to me.

It’s interesting that in the first half of the season Xhaka started 13 games out of 19. In those 13 we won 20 points, an average of 1.54 points per game. In the other 6 we got only 7 points, an average of 1.17 points per game.

So even with his allegedly humiliating performances in the first half of the season, we still picked up more points per game when he started. .

The context is that he was rubbish for the first half of the season then after a series of humiliating performances picked up his game, stopped making mistakes and achieved the bare minimum of someone expected in his position and seniority